25. March-ing on.

12.3.12

Restoration is gathering pace now. The chassis is all clean & newly painted, and the starter motor & disributer & generator are off the car and delivered to Rodney the electician for testing. They came off easy, good solid engineering and design.

First remove the water pump

Phil painted the chassis and undertray while we had access, with these components missing.

The parts are back from stove enamelling. They look nice & shiny & black. Safely stored on the shelf for the time being, they will be refitted later.

I like old things. (Where is Les Dawson when you need him?) Motorcycles, bicycles, cars, stationary engines, boats, planes, steam, old buildings.

23.3.12

Thursday evening has become Buick night. Little Phil brings fish & chips, 2 or 3 hours working on the Buick, then off to the pub to celebrate a job well done.

I had decided to use a British SU carburetor, instead of the original Marvel. This is a down draught carb and we have turned the inlet manifold over, and now the control rods don’t fit.

This week we mounted the inlet manifold and SU carburetor, and then set to measuring and drawing the control rods and cables for the carb.

Studying the photos

It is an interesting exercise planning the restoration of an old car. I mentioned earlier in the story the problems of fixing the position of the radiator while the body is dismantled. The carburetor controls present similar problems.

The accelerator pedal should be bolted to the bulkhead, which is not there at the moment. The choke pull knob fits on the dashboard, which is not there at the moment. The choke control rod passes through the bulkhead, not there, quite low down.

By studying photos of similar Buicks, and measuring the bulkhead which is on the top shelf, we were able to estimate the relevent positions and come up with a design for the control cables.

Measuring up!

We decided on a rod and short cable for the throttle, and because of the steep angle of the original rod, a cable all the way for the choke. As shown in this detailed technical drawing.

Who needs CAD?

Rodney the electrician rang last week and reported 2 faults with the generator, which he wants to show me, but we haven’t managed to hook up yet.